]]>The ABA Legal Technology Resource Center (LTRC) has published its fourth installment of TECHREPORT—a collection of easy-to-read breakouts of the annual ABA Legal Technology Survey Report, one of the leading surveys on how attorneys use technology.In 2013, the LTRC launched this companion compendium to the industrious survey, sharing highlights and foresight in laymen terms. Practitioners, firms, and legal tech companies alike can use TECHREPORT to get a better grasp on legal technology trends and predictions.

In the ten topics listed below, our very own technology experts take a look at survey data from ABA members and put the most telling findings of 2017 under the microscope. From the sudden decline in LinkedIn activity to the surge in cloud usage, our writers take an in-depth look beyond the numbers and share their observations, opinions, and predictions for the future of legal technology. Each individual article is now available online or as a downloadable PDF.

]]>Three years ago, the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center condensed the annual Legal Technology Survey Report into easily digestible articles, called ABA TECHREPORT. Since its inception in 2013, ABA TECHREPORT has been a reliable resource for practitioners, firms, and legal tech companies, providing useful analyses of legal technology subjects and trends from the past year.

With 10 topics ranging from planning and budgeting to virtual law practice, this year’s reports are chock full of information and insight from our own technology experts. Whether you’re interested in the recent litigation technology trend towards normalizing mobile and tablet use, or the constantly evolving world of social media, our writers have you covered.

David Ries, SecurityDavid Ries, a practicing lawyer in the field of commercial and technology law and litigation and co-author of Locked Down: Information Security for Lawyers, has noticed a staggering decline in encryption use amongst lawyers. Just 26% of those surveyed confirmed that they use encryption for email and confidential documents sent to clients. This is down almost 10% from last year. Read More.

Allison Shields, Blogging and Social MediaAllison Shields is a former practicing lawyer, co-author, and current President of Legal Ease Consulting, Inc. Allison discovered that the practice areas with the highest amount of bloggers included personal injury (35%), litigation (31%), and employment and labor (27%). She also found that of those who do personally maintain a legal topic blog, 42% responded that they had a client retain their legal services directly or via referral as a result of their legal topic blogging. Read More.

Dennis Kennedy, Cloud ComputingIn addition to serving as the current chair of the Legal Technology Resource Center, Dennis Kennedy is co-author of several books on social media and collaboration, an ABA tech column writer, and half of a dynamic podcast duo on The Kennedy-Mighell Report. Dennis has found that – of the cloud services available – Dropbox once again topped the list at 58%, up from 51% in 2015. Other consumer cloud services also remained popular, with significant increases—Google Apps at 49%, up from 39%; iCloud at 28%, up from 21%; Evernote is even up from last year at 25% (16% last year), despite a lot of discussion about encryption and other security concerns in the press and among lawyers. Read More.